LATROBE, PA (93.7 The Fan) – The pads weren’t on Thursday, but the physicality was there as the Steelers moved to a morning practice due to the weather forecast in the afternoon. Tight end Jonnu Smith and safety Juan Thornhill getting into a couple of brief fights and a lot of talking during practice.
It started during a one-on-one drill relatively early in the workout, Thornhill was matched up on Smith and Smith went up and caught about a 30-yard reception over the safety and then spiked it right at him while he was on the ground. Thornhill immediately jumped up and the two started pushing each other with other players on each side coming in to break it up.
“When you are a competitive man, that competitive spirit comes out in different ways,” Smith explained after. “That’s how I was feeling at the time. We are just out battling, training camp, competing and trying to get better.”
As the drill continued, Thornhill walked over to where the offensive players were still talking at Smith. They were matched up again and this time, with a lot of bumping going on down the field, the pass was incomplete. Thornhill ran up from behind and put the football in Smith’s chest with some talking and a little more pushing.
“Listen, we are teammates. We don’t have a personal beef or nothing like that. We are out here competing. We are having fun, it gets competitive.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time and we want to win. It brings out certain characteristics. We understand we can’t take this to Sunday, so we can let it out in training camp.”
Smith noted they can’t have wasted emotional reps, but what they were doing on Thursday was competing. Mike Tomlin used the standard ‘I would rather say whoa than sic ‘em’ during these incidents. He said he to keep some of the details in house. He said you can develop skill while competing and competing hard.
“This is a football team we are putting together, but it’s also an opportunity to learn how to compete and compete the right way and be professional,” Tomlin said. “I love the energy and competitive spirit on display.”
"It's football,” said Steelers safety Chuck Clark. “It's the nature of the game. It's a rough game. You put a bunch of A-type personalities in a space and go be competitive, go be physical, stuff is going to happen."
“We all know that we can get to where we want to go and competing against each other and getting that, you know, fiery juice out of each other and stuff like that,” said tight end Pat Freiermuth. “I think we're able to understand it's all for the get better of the team and get us going ready for week one.”
“It’s extremely fun,” Smith said. “It gets kinda quiet, we got to wake the stands up a little bit. It’s training camp, we are out here competing and having fun.”